#VALUE! error with date/time subtraction

[dembry]

Hello,

My friend is trying to subtract two date/time values to determine the time difference between them. For example, in cell B2 we have:

1/13/2005 18:30:15

and in cell A2 we have:

1/13/2005 13:09:26

When she tries entering the formula =B2-A2 in her spreadsheet, she gets a #VALUE error. She sent me the exact same spreadsheet but when I enter the same formula =B2-A2, it returns the correct answer (0.222 days). In other similar calculations, sometimes she does not get the #VALUE error but will get either a correct or incorrect answer.

I also noticed that cell B2 and A2 do not respond to formatting changes. We are both using Excel 2000 but the information originally came from a database query. Any idea why I can perform these calculations correctly but she can't? Is there some kind of underlying formatting that is altering her spreadsheet?

Thanks if you can help!

 

[Davers]

It sounds like your data may be exporting from the database as text, not as a time. Try mulitplying both values by 1 and see if that converts it to a number.

Dave